


the vast movement of life must endure

by genesis_frog



Series: poetry [4]
Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Gen, Gods, Gods as metaphors?, Metaphors, Poetic, Prose Poem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-16
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-06-11 15:39:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15318702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/genesis_frog/pseuds/genesis_frog
Summary: Five gods crashed onto earth.





	the vast movement of life must endure

Five gods crashed onto earth.

They emerged from metal, the shroud of ten dead men, the sum of their cobbled-together, stitched and scarred parts; Frankenstein's monster was intelligent, empathetic, and angry.

The first climbed out. The goddess of the sea, infinite and heavy; the goddess of its secrets, of the things lurking in its depths we'll never find, of the stormy skies and squalls that shake ships and sailors. She was a hunter who never wanted to be, a killer who could not forget. She was a goddess who, wounded and hurt, carried men home.

The second climbed out. The god of death, who invites flame and smoke to stranger doors, _welcomes_ it; the god of terror, who spits in its face and faces foes fearlessly, _welcomes_ it; the god of pain, the rush of feeling alive one last time, _welcomes_ it. He was the god of scarred skin, the memories that never fade and are never forgiven and are still somehow sweet.

The third climbed out. The goddess of night, the glimpses of something more lurking just beyond ones sight; the goddess of the stars hanging in the sky that are so small and faint they're hardly there, a trick of the light or simply wishful thinking; the goddess of the stars that are there one night and gone the next, blink out when the sun shines. She was the darkness that left you wondering.

The fourth climbed out. The god of memory, the kind burned into your mind; you see them with your eyes closed and you chase them away with vices, douse them in alcohol and hope the flame drowns; the god of forgetting, of leaving your story somewhere so that someone will know, someone will remember, but not you. He was the god of forgiveness, of moving forward.

The fifth didn't climb out. The goddess of knowledge, of eyes that see too much and yet too little, of mouths that don't quite know how to stay shut yet; the goddess of the mind, trapped in one without a body, made up of electrical impulses and neurons. She was a goddess of human spirit, that thing in us that can't be replicated, the spark of defiance and surge of passion that beat in all of our hearts.

They emerged under the light of a new star, a new old thing, with its yellow light. They turned their faces up to it and they felt its warmth and knew, then, that their trauma and trials and toil had not been for naught. Their feet planted on the ground, gravity holding them there, fresh air on their skin, and they laughed.

The gods emerged from a metal coffin, rose from the dead like corpses stitched together. Their scars were deep and they still ached but they were still standing.

The gods rose from the dead, and they weren't gods at all - they were human.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Men Grow the Gods They Create" by Ray Smith, which can be found in Poetry Foundation's magazine archives.


End file.
